Former Congressman From Buffalo Leads Lobbyists for G.O.P.

With both feet planted on the coffee table in his office at the law firm Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, Mr. Paxon, a Republican former congressman, reveals pointy black custom-made cowboy boots.

''I always like these boots,'' he said, removing one to identify the label, Nicona. ''I have a bunch of pairs. They're Texan.''

Texan and Republican are what everybody seems to want these days on K Street, the boulevard of influence buying and selling in Washington. But Mr. Paxon is one lobbyist who does not need to go native.

A superstar from suburban Buffalo in an emerging galaxy of Republican lobbying talent, he enjoys warm relationships with President Bush and the House speaker, J. Dennis Hastert. And with the White House and Republican Congressional leaders planning to coordinate their legislative strategy carefully with trusted K Street allies, Mr. Paxon will be at one of the capital's most influential switching stations.

Soon he had a number of his own clients, including the State University of New York system and Americans for Affordable Electricity. But it is his pipeline to Republicans in power, more than client rainmaking, that earns him, colleagues say, a salary of more than $1 million a year. And he is not even a lawyer. (His official Akin, Gump title is senior adviser.)

''He is not paid for the amount of business,'' said Robert S. Strauss, the founder of the firm with the solid-gold Democratic credentials who lured Mr. Paxon into lobbying. ''It just doesn't work that way. Bill comes in and spends two hours meeting with people and gives his judgment: 'The government is thinking about doing this.' 'We can't stand for that.' ''

It does not hurt that Mr. Paxon is half of a lobbying power couple. His wife, the Republican former congresswoman Susan Molinari of Staten Island, whom he proposed to on the House floor in 1993, has her own lobbying firm, Susan Molinari LLC, as well as a consulting contract with the public relations firm Fleischman-Hillard.

One of Mr. Paxon's tasks in the coming year will be to advise corporate clients on how to position themselves to profit from Mr. Bush's proposed $1.6 trillion tax cut. Asked whether his company would be busy lobbying, he offered an enthusiastic yes, adding: ''Our clients in the early stages are trying to determine what the most likely scenarios are, where rates may go, what kind of impact a tax bill will have on their businesses. Our firm does enormous work for clients on tax-related matters.''

Since leaving Congress, Mr. Paxon has been trying to Republicanize the lobbying industry, starting with Akin, Gump. Although the firm just recruited yet another high-profile Democrat, the former agriculture secretary Dan Glickman, Mr. Paxon sees progress: Akin, Gump has joined Team 100, an elite club of those who have contributed $100,000 to the Republican Party, and the firm was the host of about 40 fund-raisers for Republican House and Senate candidates in last year's race.

The political waters in the lobbying world have been shifting since the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994, with a noticeable quickening since Mr. Bush's White House victory. Where the lobbying firmament was, until recently, dominated by Democrats like Thomas H. Boggs, go-getters with Republican pedigrees are now in highest demand and shortest supply.

Those firms that have them, flaunt them. Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson & Hand has a roster that includes two former Senate majority leaders, George Mitchell for the Democrats and Bob Dole for the Republicans. In recent weeks, Tony Podesta, a Democratic strategist and lobbyist and brother of John D. Podesta, who was President Bill Clinton's chief of staff, has hired the Republican lobbyist Dan Matoon as his partner. What is more, the firm's name will change this month, from Podesta.com to Podesta & Matoon.

''Most of our clients encouraged us to, you know, heavy up our talent on both sides,'' Mr. Podesta said. ''The name Podesta became synonymous with Democrats in the last couple of years because of my brother's prominence, and I thought it would be a good idea to have a bipartisan firm name.''

But complicating matters is the scarcity of good Republican talent. ''Everyone wants to go into the administration,'' Mr. Paxon said. ''It is truly patriotic when I offer someone working in Congress a salary in the $400,000 to $500,000 range -- or more -- who's got children and no cash reserves, nothing, and instead goes into the administration because, they say, 'This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do the things we've talked about doing all our lives.' ''

Mr. Paxon is not tempted to leave his lobbying perch and is out recruiting friends, pitching lobbying as service to the party. ''If you want to change the culture of K Street you've got to go there,'' he said. ''Yes, it's exciting going into the administration. But it's also important to the party that you come downtown.''

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But for Charles Lewis, director of the Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan research group, Mr. Paxon is everything that is wrong with making policy in Washington. ''He represents the exaltation of the Washington mercenary culture of lobbyists who get to go to wonderful restaurants and wear Armani suits,'' Mr. Lewis said.

Mr. Paxon prefers Zegna.

His influence, like that of many Democratic and Republican lobbyists, grows out of his political contacts and his prowess as a fund-raiser. Mr. Paxon's relationship with Mr. Hastert is so close that they often speak by phone several times a week. At the Republican convention in Philadelphia last summer, Mr. Paxon orchestrated a $350,000 luncheon (paid for by seven Akin, Gump clients) in honor of Mr. Hastert for 1,000 people who had paid up to $5,000 apiece for the speaker's political action committee. The event's patrons and several other top clients were also invited to a small breakfast that morning, and Mr. Hastert dropped by to discuss changes in Social Security and Medicare.

In the presidential campaign, Mr. Paxon became one of George W. Bush's primary channels to Congress and communicated with the campaign daily through Karl Rove, now senior adviser to the president, and Maria Cino, Mr. Paxon's former top aide and close friend from Buffalo, who became Mr. Bush's political director and will be a senior official at the Commerce Department.

During the transition, Mr. Paxon coordinated 700 people who served on 15 transition teams for Mr. Bush, dealing with issues as varied as agriculture and education -- all the while working as a lobbyist. (Akin, Gump lawyers saw no conflict of interest.) He brushed aside offers of a senior position in the White House, officials there said.

On Jan. 19, he did what Vernon E. Jordan Jr., the Democratic Party operative and good friend of Bill Clinton's, had done for Akin, Gump eight years before: invited its A-list of scores of clients and prospective clients for an insider presentation of what to expect from a Bush administration. Mr. Strauss and Mr. Paxon sat together in the front of the room. (Mr. Jordan has left the firm for Wall Street.)

The next day, Inauguration Day, Akin, Gump saluted Mr. Paxon with a party for 600 that he organized and that vied with the official balls that evening as the place to be. The party was at West 24, owned by James Carville, the Democratic operative, and his wife, Mary Matalin, who is now a counselor to Vice President Dick Cheney.

Born in rural Akron, N.Y., east of Buffalo, Mr. Paxon was skinny and unathletic as a teenager. He kept a poster of Richard Nixon in his locker and supported the Vietnam War at St. Joseph's Collegiate Institute in Buffalo. At Canisius College in Buffalo, he was a mediocre student and frequented the Buffalo bars, not to drink but to drum up support for the Young Republicans. At 23, he became the youngest person ever elected to the Erie County Legislature.

There are vast differences in the political worldview between Mr. Paxon, 46, and Mr. Strauss, 81, his boss.

Mr. Strauss, the former head of the Democratic National Committee, has worked hard over the years to burnish his image as a conciliator. He was ambassador to Moscow under the first Bush administration, and was one of a handful of prominent Democrats invited to the White House shortly after the younger President Bush was sworn in.

''Parties don't mean much anymore,'' Mr. Strauss said recently. ''Television has changed everything. You can go directly to the people if you can raise the money.

''You do it more by constituencies than parties.''

One of Mr. Strauss's priorities this year, he said, is to work on changing campaign finance law.

Mr. Paxon, by contrast, is highly partisan and wants to deepen the line in the sand between the parties. ''Parties are more important today than ever,'' Mr. Paxon exclaimed. ''And if they don't destroy the campaign finance system, the parties will be even stronger. I am very concerned that the so-called campaign finance reform will dilute the strength and importance of our two-party system.''

Their philosophical divide may explain why Mr. Strauss suggests that his young charge should not get too big for his size 12A cowboy boots. ''He is learning different skills in a different life now,'' Mr. Strauss said. ''He will grow.''

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A version of this article appears in print on February 19, 2001, on Page A00011 of the National edition with the headline: Former Congressman From Buffalo Leads Lobbyists for G.O.P. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe